Anil Kapoor
Actor
Bollywood star of Mr. India and Slumdog Millionaire who won a landmark 2023 Delhi High Court injunction barring the use of AI, deepfakes, and face-morphing to exploit his name, voice, and likeness.
In his words
I’m very happy with this court order, which has come in my favor, and I think it’s very progressive and great for not only me but for other actors also.
Biography
Anil Kapoor (born 1956) has been a leading man of Hindi cinema for four decades, from the superhero classic Mr. India (1987) to the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and the series 24 (India). Few Bollywood personas are as instantly recognizable — down to his trademark exclamation “jhakaas.”
A landmark injunction against AI misuse
In September 2023, after finding deepfakes, morphed images, GIFs, and even AI-generated ringtones trading on his persona, Kapoor sued in the Delhi High Court. On September 20, 2023, Justice Prathiba Singh granted an ex-parte omnibus injunction restraining 16 named defendants — and the world at large — from using his name, image, voice, likeness, or catchphrase via AI, face-morphing, or deepfakes for commercial gain, holding that the court “can’t turn a blind eye” to such misuse of a personality’s attributes.
Because of the way technology and the AI technology … can completely take advantage of and be misused commercially … I can straight away, if that happens, send a court order and injunction and they have to pull it down.
The order became a template for India’s wave of celebrity personality-rights suits — following the path opened by Amitabh Bachchan in 2022 — and earned Kapoor a spot on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2024. He also voiced support for the 2023 Hollywood strikes, saying every actor has the right to protect themselves.
Where they stand in the war
Who backs them up
Sources & further reading
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